Perfect Blue: Awaken from a Dream (2018)

Perfect Blue: Awaken from a Dream (2018)

Author: Yoshikazu Takeuchi | Translator: Nathan A. Collins | Page Count: 196

'The screen glowed in monochrome static, the snow-like pattern punctuated by pulsing flashes in the signal, each flash accompanied by an abrasive noise like a cicada's call.'

The blurb on the back cover describes it as a 'sequel' to Yoshikazu Takeuchi's Perfect Blue: Complete Metamorphosis (2018), but it isn't that at all. And unlike CM, it's not a novel, but rather three separate short stories, similarly set in the pop-idol world.

I didn't enjoy the previous novel, but I'd foolishly bought Awaken from a Dream before reading the other, so I read it too, but with much lower expectations than I had for CM. I won't go into detail about each one because it would require giving the collection more time than I feel it warrants.

Takeuchi's basic template for a story is as follows:

An up-and-coming teen idol has banal career talk with her manager, whom she may or may not have mixed feelings about. An unwashed fan, who more often than not smells of meat, feels that perfect love means torture and murder of the object of his affection. The meat-man eventually confronts the idol, whereupon the antagonist's (or author's?) assault and/or sick sexual fantasies are detailed blandly. The assailant is mortally wounded but still manages to give the murder one more try. The story ends. But don't forget to throw in a few plot holes for good measure.

The quote that I've used above is taken from the first of the three shorts, Wake Me from this Dream. It's a good line, deceptively so, because it's by far as good as it ever gets. On only one other occasion, in the third story, Even When I Embrace You, does Takeuchi get even close to penning a sentence that's as competently written or as visually interesting as that.

He tells often of how much terror a protagonist experiences, but fails every time to make the feeling seem real. It's a classic case of an inexperienced writer telling instead of showing, using exposition and description in place of proper scene setting and engaging action. The 'show don't tell' technique is a basic tenet of fiction writing, and is one of the first things a student learns.

Characterisation of both the idols and their obsessed fans is shallow; the writing, in almost every respect, is weak and uninspired; the insipid dialogue is repetitive and amateurish, lacking any kind of auteur flourish. If Takeuchi has any skills as a dramatic fiction writer, he kept them well-hidden; but as before, how much of that is down to the translation is unknown to me.

NOTE: for anyone interested, there's a live-action film, namely Yume nara samete (2002), directed by Toshiki Satō, that was based on Takeuchi's stories, but it's worse even than the novel. There are moments of reflective contemplation in the feature, but they're few. The remainder is boring and badly acted. Obtaining it was a lot more effort than it was worth.